A quarter of businesses who have applied for patents have no idea they could claim a valuable form of tax relief on profits known as Patent Box, research by tax specialist Catax reveals today. Censuswide survey of 1,000 senior and middle managers nationwide showed that while the number of Patent Box claims has risen each year since its introduction in 2013, more than half of UK companies (54%) are still unaware they can pay less tax on profits if they have a patent, research shows1.

Even among the 43% of businesses who have pursued patents, only 73% of them are aware of Patent Box and just 59% have actually used the scheme, the Catax study found.
Patent Box offers a reduced effective rate of corporation tax of 10% for companies making a profit from income derived from patents. In other words, the taxable profit on patent-related income will nearly halve from the normal tax rate of 19%.